Brother Thraex
by Jayfiction19
Summary: Dark Eldar raids are becoming increasingly common in the Lavenza sub-sector of Segmentum Tempestus. Entire cities disappear overnight, their populations dragged into the hellish realm of Commorragh. The Imperial Guard is dispatched to restore order and crush the Xeno menace. Little do they know that the worlds of Lavenza are not the target of the Xeno raids, the Guard is.


Chapter One: The Situation of Schiavo

Location: Urban World Schiavo in the Segmentum Tempestus

Schiavo had once been a quiet Planet, a peaceful place of Four Billion Imperial Citizens who worked hard and lived fairly comfortable and happy lives. That changed when the nightmares came. At first, it had been a handful of strange incidents. Sightings of Glass Starships, a slight uptick in disappearances, rumors of creatures stalking the shadows. Before long darker more horrible things began. The first town was stolen before the PDF even realized something was wrong. Whole settlements became empty overnight, empty for a few traumatized children that seemed to be left solely to tell the PDF of the "Knife-Things" that took their parents.

PDF patrols were assembled and defensive protocols long unused were reactivated. Yet despite that more and more farming hamlets and mining towns were being snuffed out like candles in wind. The people of Schiavo suffered this state of fear for nearly a Lunar orbit before the PDF made contact with their foes. A Patrol caught their enemies off guard and blasted one of their Spiked vessels out of the sky and executed its passengers. Shaped in twisted mockeries of the sacred Human Form the elongated armored forms were examined. The attacker was Clad in glossy black resin and had facial features like those of a human beauty stretched into a foul parody. Even this relatively safe backwater world knew what these things were, Xeno raiders had come.

Knowing this was far beyond them the PDF sent an astropathic signal to the nearest Fortress world, with any luck the Hammer of the Emperor would be able to strike down these foul Xenos. Luckily for Schiavo, the Sub-Sectors Battlegroup was already hunting the Xeno raiders and headed near them. It seemed the Emperor smiled upon this planet and would save them from the Alien Menace. Sadly in the Grimdarkness of the Far Future hope and salvations are cruelest illusions. For the lives and deaths of those on Schiavo were not but the playthings of the Spawn of Blades and Darkness...

It took nearly a month before Five Guard regiments and Imperial Naval elements arrived at Schiavo. Dropships and atmospheric vessels ferried thousands of Guardsmen to the world below. It had not been an easy month, with nightly raids striking always where the planet's defenses were weakest. To make matters worse the Xenos had started leaving reminders of their presence in the form of brutalised corpses. Men, Women and Children mutilated into grisly monuments to pain and punishment. All the victims faces were perfectly recognisable even when the rest of their bodies were twisted masses of gore.

Morale dropped horribly whenever the Flesh-Sculptures had to be destroyed (or put down in some truly horrible cases) Suicides and summary executions became increasingly common, the planet would not have lasted much longer under this psychological torture if the Guard had not arrived. Generals met with the Planetary Governor and explained the situation, a Xeno Menace known as the Eldar had been reaving and raiding the local Sub-Sector. The Lord General in charge of the expedition explained the Guards plan. To counter the Eldar lighting attacks the Guard would fortify key locations into hardpoints across the planet to form a net of Garrisons. Whenever Xeno sightings occurred all nearby garrisons would converge on the Enemy and cutting off escape routes and crushing the Alien-Filth.

Slowly but surely the Ambush Nets were formed and put into devastating effect. Eldar Raiders were blasted out of the sky and waves of Las-fire ripped apart the survivors. The Imperials knew getting close to the Eldar was a death sentence and they were content to pick off the Knife-Eared Monsters from afar. Despite this success, the Commanders were worried. No Alien Vessels had been detected arriving or leaving the planet, but the enemies numbers did not seem to increase or decrease. Even more worryingly was the Eldar strategy or lack of it. Infamous for their tricky intellect and manipulative nature it seemed bizarre that their raids kept falling to such a simple strategy. Could there be more to this than simple Slave-Raiding?

The curious actions of the Xenos bothered the Lord-General, he decided to assuage his worries with information about the Aliens intents. This data was going to be acquired by capturing an Eldar and making it spill its guts (figuratively or literally) about whatever in the God-Emperors name the Xenos were up to. A company of elites was handpicked for this particularly vicious mission, for capturing a living Eldar was not a task for the weak.

Ten Soldiers were deployed into the most recent clash with the Eldar with the orders to subdue one of the Xenos leaders using a specific Neurotoxin the Medicae swore by. Hiding in the underbrush the squad watched Avengers and Thunderbolts scream through the skies as they hunted the Crystalline Eldar Ships. The Night sky was lit up with Las-bolts, explosions and the eldritch effects of the Xenos Weapons. One Eldar Ship was clipped and slowly fell to the ground as its occupants bailed from the drifting craft. Seeing their opportunity the Squad moved through the Forest with speed and dexterity virtually unheard of in humans. This Elite Squad was composed of a very specific type of Guardsman. The one type that might stand a chance in close combat against the Xenos. The Catachan Jungle Fighters.

The Commandos surged through the brush like apex predators of Old Terra. Millennia of natural selection had forged the Catachan people into master trackers and hunters. The targeted Eldar stumbled away from the crash bickering over who was to blame for their current predicament. They stopped the minute they sensed something was wrong. The Xenos had not even the time to yell a warning before the Children of the Jungle descended.

The Catachans melted out of the forest as one. Seven Eldar raiders vs Ten Catachan Commandos. For all their in built perfection and superiority, the Pointy-Ears were easy prey. The Catachans had managed to get within three meters of the Eldar before they were detected, and that was more than close enough to rip them apart. Combat Knifes severed joints and Lasbolts burned through alien organs. Within thirty seconds the Eldar all lay dead or crippled, with two Catachans falling to the strange crystal spitting Eldar weapons. The still living Xenos spat curses as the Catachans examined the survivors to figure out the highest ranking. Using the golden rule of rank identification they tranquilized a particularly garishly armored female and executed the other Xenos.

The Catachan officer fired a flare into the skies and waited with their Alien cargo. A Dropship arrived just as the Sun rose over the blood splattered forest clearing where the night's ambush had taken place. The Dropship crew looked around for the Commandos and were shocked when they silently materialized in the Landers hold. Eight Commandos, two sets of dog tags and a captured Xeno were then ferried back to the main Guard Fortress.

The Commandos arrived back at the Pre-Fab Fortress that had been assembled outside Schiavo's Capital City. The Catachans made a curious sight as they exited the Dropship, their leader had the bound and wriggling Eldar prisoner slung over his shoulder like a sack of produce. The other Jungle Fighters seemed just as unfazed and engaged in banter as their leader deposited the Xeno roughly on the ground. They were met by a Squad of Stormtroopers and a handful of other Millitarium personnel who collected the Xeno. Salutes and briefings were exchanged and the two groups went their separate ways.

The Lord-General knew getting any information out of the Xeno would be a nearly impossible task, thankfully he had an expert at his disposal that might be able to extract some useful data. Captain-Chirurgeon Finnian Falke was a curiosity among the guard, in his youth the Chirurgeon had been "recruited" by an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor who noticed his talent and analytical mind. While Guardsmen being recruited into Inquisitorial retinues was not unheard of, surviving that particular tour of duty was. Captain Falke's case was stranger still in that he had not only survived his ordeal but survived his Inquisitors death. Figuring there were few places in the Imperium where his talents could be put to use he returned to the Guard and served as the personal physician (among other things) to numerous Commanders of the Imperial Navy and Guard.

Falke had spent a good chunk of the engagement on Schiavo trying to keep a particularly irritable three hundred and twenty-three-year-old Vice Admiral from dying before a skilled enough Commodore could arrive and take up his command, making him rather distracted from the affairs going down on the planet below. The Lord-General's Vox reached him as he paced his office/quarters trying to think of a way to stall death's advance for another week or so. When he heard his task was to interrogate an Eldar he stopped mid stride and simply asked: "How spiky is the Xeno's armor?" The Vox officer was more than a little nonplussed at this and said "Umm pretty spiky? Very black and sharp looking." Falkes Response over the Vox was a short laugh then "Tell the Lord General I will arrive as soon as I can" The Captain had always wanted to see if the innards of Craftworld and Commorragh Eldar differed.

After handing the Vice-Admirals case to a colleague Falke packed up his supplies and boarded a Dropship headed down to the planet. He arrived as night fell across the Fortress and did little to hide his giddiness about his assignment. Captain Falke struck a figure equal part intimidating and absurd. Clad in a black uniform that seemed part armor part surgical garb, and with a rictus of a grin plastered across his face. He walked in a hurried excited manner, not unlike a child headed to a candy store but told not to run, and was trailed by a number of servants carrying his luggage and equipment.

Entering the fortress The Captain was greeted by a small army of Military Bureaucrats and Officers who were none too thrilled at the idea of this strange Chirurgeon being allowed access to a such a valuable prisoner. Experienced torturers were a dime a dozen among the ranks of the Guard, so why was this Medicae being summoned? When Senior Aides and officers inquired to the Lord-General about his curious choice of interrogator, he simply responded "The skills to torture a Human and a Xeno are radically different, so I decided to call in a Specialist"

Even with the pressure of the Lord-General's influence, it took a good six hours for all the proper forms and examinations to be carried out. Even with the recent reforms Imperial bureaucracy still was a shambling colossus of red tape and paperwork that needed to be navigated. Falke was finally allowed access to the Containment Cells where the Xeno Prisoner was being kept.

Captain Falke was brought to the observation deck of the Containment cells where various horrors and objects encountered during the war were stored. Some chambers were filled with piles of Eldar weapons and armor being analyzed and disassembled by curious Tech-Priests. Others held dissection labs where the anatomy of Eldar, Clawed Fiends, and Ur-Ghuls was documented. The last and most heavily guarded chamber held a single prisoner, the Chirurgeon shivered in excitement at the sight of his "patient." Walking over the translucent ceiling of the Eldars cell he let out a chuckle and said to nobody in particular "This is going to be fun!"


End file.
